PEERING THROUGH the thermographic sniper sights, Hayden LeMarck saw the human-shaped heat signatures of the green team walk away from the dying member of the team member they’d left behind in the Mirage entrance. The dozens of piranha that had splashed across the floor after the explosion glowed steadily brighter as their body temperature escalated. Some of them still flopped weakly.
“Confirmed kill on one of the green team,” LeMarck told Hardcoe. “His body temp’s dropping.” He looked at the baron.
“The green team is inside the building?” Hardcoe asked.
“Yes, sir.”
Hardcoe smiled, then rubbed his hands together. “Wallis.”
“Sir,” Thoroughgood replied.
“Get a message to tell Phibes to let them go.”
“Sir?” Thoroughgood looked confused.
LeMarck was confused himself. He’d known Hardcoe and Phibes had been working on the traps for this year’s Big Game, but none of the details had been released. Phibes was renowned in the seven villes for his vicious, bloodthirsty ways and appetites.
“Just get him the message,” the Baron said. “He’ll know what I mean.”
Thoroughgood left, moving quickly.
Hardcoe looked at Connrad. “It appears good fortune has turned the other cheek on you.”
“One death,” Connrad growled, reaching forward and sliding a bead across his abacus. “You’ve suffered four.”
“Not as many as young Francis’s team,” Hardcoe answered good-naturedly.
Giskard made a mock woeful face, then reached for a fresh drink.
“What is it you sent your man for?” Connrad demanded.
“You’re familiar with Phibes?” Hardcoe asked.
Connrad gave a short, impatient nod. “Calls himself a physician. A worse joke was never made.”
“He is somewhatcoarse and ill-tempered,” Hardcoe agreed.
“The man,” Giskard said definitely, “is sick and perverted.”
Dettwyler leaned forward. “Wasn’t he the man who tried to bring life back into corpses, create some kind of army of the undead?”
“Yes,” Deke Ramsey replied. “He was partially successful from what I was told.”
LeMarck recalled the incident and shivered. The shambling monstrosities that Phibes had raised were mockeries of men, women and children, torn from the fresh womb of the grave and pieced together in various ways. Mercifully the things had only experienced near life for a matter of minutes and had appeared in no way under control of themselves, much less Phibes’s control. They’d been burned so that no one would attempt to figure out what the man had done to raise them from the dead.
Hardcoe waved the comment away, not answering. “Phibes is a genius.”
“The way I heard it,” Connrad said, “he’s got access to certain predark materials.”
“I don’t ask,” Hardcoe responded.
“But neither do you deny knowledge of such a thing,” Giskard countered.
“Forget that,” Connrad said. “What is he loosing into the pit?”
Hardcoe smiled, a cold effort genuinely without humor. “In his travels in recent days, he came across an interesting strain of beasts created before the skydark. From somewhere along the upper Cific coastline.”
“What kinds of beasts are they?” Dettwyler asked.
“Monkeys,” Hardcoe answered.
“Monkeys,” Connrad scoffed. He slapped his knee. “As a baron, you have a right to include whatever traps you deem necessary in the pit. How the hell can you expect monkeys to be a threat to armed men?”
“They’ve mutated,” Hardcoe answered, “just as the big cats we found roaming this burg have.”
“In what way?” Giskard asked.
LeMarck was interested, as well. He didn’t like getting cut from the information loop, but he knew it was necessary at times.
“I didn’t know this at the time,” Hardcoe said, “but most primates are carnivorous to a degree.”
“Primates?” Dettwyler asked.
LeMarck knew the term had come from Phibes, and Hardcoe had picked it up. Hardcoe liked appearing educated.
“Any kind of monkey or ape,” Hardcoe replied. “These are meat eaters by choice. For the last seven months, Phibes has been working with them herefeeding them, making them angry and fearful, starving them sometimes until they almost went insane. Twice they started fighting among themselves, killing four of the weaker ones and devouring them. Over the years Phibes said they’ve been inbred until insanity is less than a stone’s throw away for them.”
“Get to it,” Connrad said.
“For the last two months the monkeys have had a constant feeding area,” Hardcoe replied.